


Understanding

by robinsword



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Spoilers, TAZ Amnesty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 08:08:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19058653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robinsword/pseuds/robinsword
Summary: Aubrey knows quite a bit about the shock and guilt that comes along with the realization that you unintentionally killed someone.





	Understanding

**Author's Note:**

> Episode 28... fuckkk...
> 
> Anyway I know they're too busy with Plot right now but please, let me indulge in a small imaginary Aubrey and Pigeon interaction set soon after [redacted] died.  
>  **Spoilers, obviously, and a canonical death mention... although who knows what episode 29 will bring...**

The moment that the numbness in her mind begins to fade away, Pigeon realizes that she’s still holding the rifle. She stops, boots crunching in the dirt and looks at it blankly, before suddenly throwing it with a vicious force, as far away from herself as she can manage with her trembling arms. It lands somewhere under a cluster of pines, disappearing out of sight as it blends into the shadows being cast under the silvery moonlight. The same moonlight that is, apparently, shining on a mysterious gate that lies in a clearing somewhere far behind her. 

The thought leaves a bitter taste in her mouth.

It’s not long after this thought passes that she notices an orange light glinting through the shadows several feet ahead of her. It seems slightly distorted when she tries to focus on it, stretched by the tears that she only now realizes have been collecting in the corners of her eyes and streaming down her cheeks. 

“Pigeon?” 

Pigeon turns her face away from the approaching light, wiping the tears away, quickly, with the sleeve of her yellow Hornets jacket. When she turns back she can’t bring herself to look Aubrey in the eye. As far as Pigeon knows, Aubrey was one of the closest friends Ned had… well… before…  
Her voice sounds raw and cracked in her own ears when she finally speaks. “Aubrey… I, uh -”   
What can she say? That she’s sorry? That she didn’t mean it? What does it matter? The results are what they are and no amount of apology is going to change them.  
The tears are welling up again and Pigeon can feel her chest constricting painfully as she tries to think of what to say. Half of her just wants Aubrey to yell at her now and be done with it. She’d deserve it. 

Instead she feels two arms wrap around her shoulders and the smooth plastic of a pin badge press up against her cheek. 

Aubrey holds onto Pigeon tightly, trying to give her some comfort as she cries into her arms. And Aubrey fights back tears of her own as she whispers - because a whisper is all that she can manage right now: 

“I understand."

Not ‘it’s okay’. Because it’s not okay.

  
Not ‘I forgive you’ because, right now, she still doesn’t feel so sure that she deserves to speak on behalf of Ned’s friends. She’s not ready yet.

But understanding? That she can offer. She’s faced enough self-blame for deaths - both real and perceived - that she hadn’t meant to cause. With her mother. With Duck. Heck, with how this week has been going, she’s beginning to come to grips with the possibility that she will have to face it many times more. 

Especially if whatever she’s just unleashed by not telling Janelle the truth behind that fucking book is as bad as it seems to be…


End file.
